


Though It's The End of The World, Don't Blame Yourself

by noxlacrimae



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, sorta hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 14:25:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17789075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlacrimae/pseuds/noxlacrimae
Summary: “Oh Evan my boy, don’t tell me you have forgotten? That would be quite a shame, for you to forget how you got here. What you’ve done. For the work. For me. But you did it.” the voice was different now, and sounded like it was coming from inside his own head. “By your hand, they all died. But that was what you wanted, wasn’t it? That they all die and forget what they had seen. They kept your secret safe, but who could save you? It was far too late for you, even then.”





	Though It's The End of The World, Don't Blame Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> This was a gift for a friend that they have given me permission to post! 
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day~

_ The soft sunlight shone through the forest. Trees waved in the soft wind and in that moment it was peaceful. In the distance there was the sound of machinery and conversation, sometimes laughter. Evan stood in the small clearing and felt utterly calm, for the first time in a long time, but he could not remember why he had gone so long without peace. “It’s beautiful isn’t it?” the rough voice, hardened by years of cigars, said behind him. Evan knew without even having to look who had spoken. “Yes. It really is.” The creaking laugh made him smile at first, until it didn’t stop. As he began to turn, reality seemed to shift. Cracks appeared over his vision, and through them he saw the forest filled with fog, the sounds of work and conversation shifting to piercing screams. As he turned, he noticed that his hands were splattered in blood, oozing wounds next to long healed scars. What was happening? Why was he covered in so much blood? “Father,” his voice sounded wrong in his own ears, as if his mouth was being blocked. “What is happening?” The thing that stood where his father was about as far from human as a corpse could be and still be recognizable. It’s rotten jaws hung open as the same rough voice spoke again, this time with a strange undercurrent, as if another voice was also speaking the words. “Oh Evan my boy, don’t tell me you have forgotten? That would be quite a shame, for you to forget how you got here. What you’ve done. For the work. For me. But you did it.” the voice was different now, and sounded like it was coming from inside his own head. “By your hand, they all died. But that was what you wanted, wasn’t it? That they all die and forget what they had seen. They kept your secret safe, but who could save you? It was far too late for you, even then.”  _

 

The Trapper jolted, shaking off the remnants of the dream he could half remember, and moved through the familiar broken down building, a warehouse now come to ruin, and set his mind back to the task at hand. Find the runners, catch them, return them to the Entity. A simple enough set of tasks, and ones that he could say he accomplished often and well. The work had become mindless to him now. It took hardly any energy, and before he knew it he had forgotten the dream that had seemed so troubling. 

 

In between the times when he was called to work, he mostly wandered the foggy fields that seemed endless. In the beginning, he had walked because he wanted to escape, knew that if there was a way out, he would find it. Now, he walked more out of habit than anything else. It was on a walk that he had seen the first other hunter. Someone like him, too tall to be a runner, with something not quite human to it. The first time that he had seen the figure, he had wondered if it had seen him. Only moments after he spotted them, the figure was suddenly gone. He still remembered the soft tone of a bell and the too long limbs. The Wraith, as he called the figure in his mind, was one of the first other hunters that he had seen. Despite the fact that he had seen at least three other hunters on his walks, he had yet to talk to one. There just didn’t seem to be a point to it. The only thing he wanted to know about the other hunters was if they were as good as him. He doubted anyone could be, as none of them had been doing this as long as he had. He had been here so long that he couldn’t remember anything before it, even though he knew there had been something before. He tried not to let it bother him.

 

The first time he heard the Wraith’s bell up close, he was walking towards a campfire that he had been called to watch. The noise of the bell cut anyone who heard it to the core, leaving them unbalanced and unnerved. Evan had never heard a noise like it before. He saw the Wraith standing in the watching place, just outside of the light of the campfire. The too-tall figure turned, and when it caught sight of him, it seemed to shrink a little. It gave what almost seemed like a bow, and then gestured towards the runners who stood around the fire. Evan nodded, surprised that the Wraith would turn down a call, especially just to offer him a chance to work, but always willing to do it. As Evan nodded, the figure present just a moment before was gone, leaving only the soft clanging of bells behind it. 

 

_ Evan was walking up to the desk of a junkyard, and he rang the bell on the counter. After a moment a man appeared from the side door, wiping grease from his hands as he smiled “How can I help you, sir?” The man was tall, taller than Evan which meant he must tower over most people. “I have a car that I need fixed up. My old man hasn’t driven it in years, so it has fallen pretty badly into disrepair. I need someone who understands how these things work better than I do to check it out.” The man’s smile stayed the whole time, never fading and yet never feeling fake. It made Evan feel warm enough that he almost smiled back. Almost. “Joe!” a voice rang out from behind the man, causing his smile to fall for the first time since he had seen Evan. The instant that the smile was gone, Evan had an irrational desire to bring it back however he could. A small, pale man walked through the doors, pushing past the first man to shake Evan’s hand. “I’m Mr. Azarov, This is my shop. I see you’ve already met my employee, Mr. Ojomo.” “Evan MacMillan. I’ve been talking to Mr. Ojomo here about the work that I need done.” Azarov frowned slightly, then said “Well, Joe here usually doesn’t run the front desk. Do you have the car that you need worked on with you?” Evan shook his head. “No, it’s at home. I was going to ask of you could have a technician come and look at it. If Mr. Ojomo is willing, it would be a great help to me.” Evan could see the way that Ojomo perked up behind his boss at the offer. Azarov frowned further before saying “We don’t usually do work like that…” “Whatever your commission price is, I’m sure will be fine.” Evan said smoothly, seeing the greedy gleam that lit in the small man’s eyes. Was there anything in this world that he couldn’t get for the right price? The answer had yet to be no. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. You think you could do some work for Mr. Macmillan, Joe?” “Yes, sir.” Ojomo said quietly. “Great,” Evan said, standing back from the desk and adjusting his jacket. “You can call to let me know when you will be available, tomorrow would work for me.” Ojomo smiled, and Evan felt like he had done the right thing.  _

 

At the sound of bells, Evan turned, seeing the Wraith appear near him in the field. It appeared that the creature hadn’t noticed him, because it was walking calmly and visibly. It stopped turning to face him, and he felt a sudden sense of deja vu. The sense shocked him, as he was sure that this moment was reminding him of one from the life he had lived before. The Wraith continued it’s unusually casual movement, and stopped only a few feet from him. They watched each other for a moment, Evan unsure whether the other hunter had come to talk to him, or to challenge him. Instead, the Wraith finally looked down, and smoothly sat on the ground, laying the bell on the ground in front of him and began tracing new designs onto the bell with paints that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Evan stood awkwardly for a while, and then finally sat down. He thought he heard a happy humming noise from the Wraith and felt like he had made the right choice. 

 

_ Mr. Ojomo had reintroduced himself (“Please, call me Philip”) when he had arrived at the MacMillan estate, his smile once again so bright that Evan felt like he was looking at the sun. Evan stood by somewhat awkwardly as Philip had walked into the garage and began looking over the car that had long sat dormant. Finally, Evan called a maid to bring the two of them something to drink. He had never done something like that before, he had never even bothered to hang around his workers for longer than it took to get their reports, but he somehow couldn’t make himself leave the side of the man who was now absentmindedly whistling a song under his breath as he tinkered with the car. Maybe it was the thought of what was waiting for him upstairs, or maybe Philip was just a spark of something new to his very monotonous life. The maid eventually delivered the drinks, and Evan smiled awkwardly when Philip thanked him with surprise in his voice, and the cheer in his eyes caused Evan’s heart to skip a beat. They sat together for some time, Evan’s manners finally forcing him to make small talk with the other man. Philip told Evan about his hometown, and how he had come to the states to make a new life for himself. “I just wanted something new, somewhere with hope you know? My family… they were not very happy that I wanted to leave. I send them letters, and I call, but they don’t call back. I just hope that they are okay, happy even. I don’t hold it against them.” Evan thought of his own family and wondered at the way Philip could accept so gracefully the rejection and isolation his family put him through. Evan wondered what Philip would say if he told him what his own family was like. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Evan wanted to keep Philip on the outside, a novel escape from his own life. Any good impression that Philip had of him, he wanted to preserve, and sharing his own troubles would only cost him that.  _

 

Meeting the Wraith became a habit before he realized it. Evan would be walking, and the instant the Wraith appeared at his side, he would stop, and they would sit together, just the way that they had the first time. Evan didn’t realize how much he looked forward to seeing the other until he noticed that he grew restless when he went some time without seeing the Wraith. He wasn’t sure why he enjoyed seeing the other hunter so much, but he reasoned with himself and said it was just the break of routine,  _ a novel escape. _ That was why he enjoyed the chance, the reason to stop for a moment. He refused to admit to himself that when the Wraith was near he felt calm, and like a broken piece long loose had clicked into place. That the whistled tunes and whispers of the other hunter would stick in his head, the haunting refrains of them echoing in his thoughts. He was sitting decidedly  _ not  _ enjoying listening to the Wraith, and definitely not smiling under his mask as he hummed along as well, when he looked up and suddenly the Wraith was gone, and in his place was sitting a human, humming along the same tune. The man looked up, and suddenly Evan was sitting in the forest. “Evan?” the man asked. Philip. His name was  _ Philip. And the two of them were sitting in the forest on Evan’s property. “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch what you said.” Philip laughed, and Evan felt like his chest might burst from the joy that he felt looking at Philip, head thrown back and carefree.  _ What was happening? Was he dreaming again? Evan felt like he was looking at a double exposed photograph. One second he saw the Wraith, the next he saw Philip. A throbbing in his head made him wince, and look away, suddenly dizzy. He lurched up, in his swirling mind, it somehow seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t the throbbing got even worse, and then he was falling. The last thing he saw before he hit the ground was the Wraith reaching towards him, and he heard Philip shout “Evan!” 

 

_ “Evan! Can you hear me?” Evan opened his eyes, head still spinning. The Wraith- no Philip, was holding out his hand to Evan, his face showing his concern. Evan winced, then started to rise. “Philip, what is going on?” Philip’s concerned look deepened. “Tell me what you remember.” “I thought I was somewhere cold and foggy. There was something wrong with my face, my arms. I remember… killing people. I guess I was dreaming.” Philip smiled sadly. “You weren’t dreaming Evan. I remember it too. We really are those monsters in that place.” Evan’s stomach dropped. “If that is real, then how are we here? And where is here?” “Now that I can’t tell you. I don’t know myself. I think we are in somewhere I remember fondly. This is my memory. Or a copy of it, or something. I don’t know.” “Your memory? This looks like my estate though.” Philip frowned a little. “I guess you don’t remember everything then. We knew each other, back then, or here. You hired me, to work on your car.” The dreams and memories flooded back as Evan sat. “I remember now. You were fixing my dad’s car. I liked talking to you, so I kept asking you to come back, to fix trivial things, or things that weren’t even wrong with the car. And you kept coming back….until… you didn’t. You disappeared. It was in the news that your junkyard caught on fire, and your boss’s corpse was found crushed in a machine. You were just, gone.” There were tears in Philip’s eyes “I didn’t want to leave. I had to. If I had told you...I was afraid they would come after you. That It would come after you too. My efforts didn’t seem to be of much use, in the end.  What else do you remember?” “I remember… what I did.” Philip nodded solemnly. “We died, I think. This is some sort of afterlife, this and the foggy place. I don’t know how we got here, and I don’t think we can get out.” Philip paused for a moment, then said “...is that everything you remember?” Evan shook his head helplessly. “My head is still all jumbled. I’m not sure if I remember anything else.” Philip moved closer, cautiously. “Do you remember being here, in the forest, with me?” Evan thought for a moment, then said “I remember wanting to show you the path through the forest to the mines. We got off trail, and we sat down to take a break. I remember looking up at the way the sun came through the trees…” Evan turned, his face nearly colliding with Philip’s from the sudden closeness. “Do you remember this?” Philip whispered, and then suddenly his lips were on Evan’s. The feeling was familiar and new all at once, and as the surprise wore off, he kissed back earnestly. The memories flashed through his mind in bursts. The first time that they had kissed. How he had told Philip he loved him. The last day that he had seen Philip, and begged him to stay, not to go back to work. Walking in the forest, hand in hand and smiling. Long days, long nights, sheets and urgent kisses and beds that suddenly felt so empty, and too big for one.  _

 

When Evan woke, he was alone. He stood, and looked around, and seeing nothing, began to wonder if the dream hadn’t been real after all. Then the soft sound of bells jangled behind him, and he turned. Philip stood behind him, somewhat timidly. “Philip” Evan managed to croak out, his voice rusty from disuse. Philip hummed. Evan reached out after a moment, taking the Wraith’s bandaged hand in his own scarred one. Philip squeezed his hand in return. “ _ I don’t think we’re supposed to be happy here. I don’t think we’re supposed to remember before.” Philip murmured into Evan’s chest. Evan stroked Philip’s head as he said. “But we do remember. And even if we’re trapped there, we have here too. And we have this. We have us.” Philip intertwined his hand with Evan’s free one. “We have us. And as long as we remember nothing can take it away.”  _ They walked, hand in hand. “We have us.” Evan ground out. Philip hummed happily, and nodded before lifting Evan’s mask to kiss him.  _ “We can be happy here.”    _


End file.
